


Four Lost Souls Swimming in a Fish Bowl

by Dorkangel



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Awesome Darcy Lewis, Ballerina Natasha, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Kid Clint Barton, Loki Has Issues, M/M, Natasha Is a Good Bro, Natasha runs the school like a mafia, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Principal Nick Fury, Protective Steve, Tony and Howard are brothers, amputee bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-08
Updated: 2015-02-08
Packaged: 2018-03-09 08:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3243089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorkangel/pseuds/Dorkangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were, all three of them, completely different. The teachers had pinned them down quickly (in perfect Breakfast Club style) as a nerd, a popular bitch and a goofball.<br/>Of course, things are never so simple.</p><p>In which no one knows that Steve (the secretly badass nerd), Darcy (the secretly smart goofball) and Natasha (the secretly manipulative princess) are best friends, and all three fall for Bucky Barnes, the strange new kid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Natasha, Darcy, and Steve.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Pink Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here'.

They were, all three of them, completely different. The teachers had pinned them down quickly (in perfect Breakfast Club style) as a nerd, a popular bitch and a goofball.  
Of course, things are never so simple.  
Steve, the nerd, had a penchant for troublemaking. Usually in the name of Justice, of course, but still. Punching people at least twice his size seemed to be a special hobby of his. He wasn't a particularly bad kid, but he couldn't stand being pigeonholed by bullies - teachers, students, whatever - and soon enough people had come to associate his neatly brushed blonde hair, clunky hipster glasses and hoodies with Trouble.  
Natasha, the bitch, was... Well, on a surface level, she seemed to fit her caricature pretty well. Her red hair was always perfectly curled, her makeup delicate and tidy, her clothes just skirting the edge of inappropriate. The thing was, as people pretty soon realised, that she was ingenious, and used her powers of cold-hearted manipulation for The Dark Side. Instead of collecting information on who was dating who and sharing secrets with her girlfriends over romcoms and cocoa, she recruited the borderline mental kids in the year below (Maria, Skye, Grant), her own foster brother (Clint), and two teachers (Mr. Coulson and Principal Fury) into her pseudo intelligence agency and used the data they provided her with to control the movements of everyone, from the board of governors to the freshmen. (Her brother always said that the warning was in the black clothes. No popular chick would ever wear that much black.)  
Darcy, the goofball, was too clever for her own good. She might very well have spent all her time in class mucking around or with her head on the table, earbuds in, but she always passed with flying colours. The first time (not the last) that she actually passed into school legend territory, though, was in her sophomore year, when she didn't even turn up _once_ to Astronomy, meandered lazily into the exam, finished it in five minutes, and got a _hundred percent_.  
But, apart from some suspicions (Darcy), disapproval (Steve), and downright terror (Natasha), the teachers kept seeing them how they wanted to see them, and the three kids kept up the act. At least, in public.  
They never sat with each other at lunch - Steve had Sam and Peggy to talk to, and Tony and Howard if he and Sam decided that they could be bothered to deal with the dysfunctional Stark brothers; Darcy and her friend Jane hung out with Loki and Thor, the exchange students; Natasha either integrated herself with whatever clique she was currently spying on, or sat with her informants (Clint referred to them as the Russian Mafia, since she was Russian) and they avoided each other in school in the precise way that their personas always would.  
At home, of course, was different.  
(If Steve's mother was surprised the first time two beautiful girls turned up on her doorstep asking for him, she certainly blinked it off quickly. Any questions she had, like 'Are you here for homework help?', 'Are you two and Steve in the same class?', 'So, um, are either of you and Steve...?' were killed quickly with a harsh, short 'No.' from Natasha.) It was easy to relax when they were all splayed out on his bed, limbs intertwined, or cuddled together on Darcy's beanbag, music blaring, or in a blanket-fort on Natasha's couch like kids, giggling at the fact that they were nearly seventeen and having an honest to god sleepover, _sans_ intercourse.  
There was never anything even vaguely relationship-ish between them. Maybe Nat and Darcy had made out once or twice - according to Clint, anyway, who was twelve and therefore not the most reliable source of information - but that was before they met Steve. And maybe Steve had had that freshman year hopeless crush on Natasha, but then again, so had every boy. Darcy had rolled her eyes behind her glasses when he confessed that he hadn't really been attracted to _her_ , disappointed but not surprised. "S'ok, man." she sighed. "I hadn't worked out how to do winged eyeliner or lipstick yet." She 'hmm'ed, then, glancing at Natasha. "Oh, and no one had taught me how to curl my hair."  
The redhead smiled slightly, her eyes closed. They were in Steve's room, and she was lying with her feet on the pillows and her head at the end. "Don't steal my look." she murmured sleepily.  
Darcy snorted. "Yeah, like I'd ever manage to look like you."  
Natasha cracked an eye open and aimed the full force of a Russian Mobster glare at her. "Darce, there are people who would kill for your hair."  
They both glanced at Steve for reassurance, in the manner that girls do sometimes when they're arguing. He froze like a deer caught in headlights, and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.  
"Um... It's really, uh, shiny. And soft."  
She laughed and threw a pillow at him, while Natasha just clucked her tongue and closed her eyes again.  
"You will be a virgin forever, Stevie."  
He grinned and lay down next to her. "I know, right?"

In a way, their personas were kind of swapped. Steve was the joker, Natasha was the smart one, Darcy was pretty. So, they were all completely different. Just not in the way that anyone would expect.  
And they were best friends.

*

Today, Natasha had decided that it was long past time that she checked on the Stark brothers (and Tony's girlfriend, who hung out with them solely for peacekeeping purposes), and was perched elegantly on the edge of their table outside the main building, checking that Tony wasn't _actually_ building a trebuchet with her makeup mirror while, for all intents and purposes, gazing at her nails in distracted boredom.  
"Hey, new student." cut Howard, looking up from his phone. Both he and Tony had their mother's Italian tanned skin and calculatingly intelligent, deep chocolate eyes, gazing out from under almost identical shocks of wild brown hair. They both had the same reckless attitude to their own safety and lack of respect for authority figures too, which Pepper (Tony's girlfriend) claimed was giving her a permanent migraine.  
The only real difference was that Howard was older and therefore a couple of inches taller, much to Tony's chagrin. Or maybe it was just the way that Howard would occasionally ruffle his brother's hair and smile lazily, claiming that 'There aren't that many people I'm taller than. Got to make the most of the bambino's height, right?' that got on Tony's nerves.  
Natasha was putting up with them because they were almost creepily smart. No other reason. It wasn't that they were actually, literally _hilarious_.  
"Hey," repeated Howard, tapping her shoulder and coming to stand next to her. "Romanov. Newbie. Someone you haven't bitched into submission yet."  
That was a good point, actually. She glanced up and noted the boy, who was being led by a teacher into the school, longish black hair pulled back into bun, hands shoved deep into the central pocket of his hoodie. She wasn't sure, but she thought he was wearing eyeliner. Maybe he was just really sleep deprived.  
"I see him." she nodded, and pulled out her phone to send a group text to her minions. "Hardly looks like a jock, does he?"  
Pepper made a small sound of worry from behind her, fork poised delicately over her salad. "He looks like trouble."  
Howard and Tony both arched an eyebrow and smirked, glancing at each other. "Fifteen dollars says before the weekend." snapped the younger brother, smiling, and the older one winced. "Damn. I was going to say that- ten dollars that it happens at the weekend."  
"Deal. And if I'm wrong I'll buy Nat and Pepper a pair of shoes each."  
Howard narrowed his eyes, trying to get a better look at the new boy. "Careful, Tony. They've got expensive tastes."  
"Only when you're paying." pointed out Natasha, and then frowned at them. "Wait, what are you two even talking about?"  
"How long it'll take Rogers to decide to try and fight him." said Tony, going back to his blueprints. "Duh."  
Natasha blinked, and then shrugged. Her bet would probably have been that Steve would have what she and Darcy referred to as 'a little altercation' before the weekend as well.

Darcy and her friends were just outside of the cafeteria, trying to make some sense out of one of Thor's stories. He was a Norwegian exchange student, who seemed to have learned English from the Canterbury Tales and spent most of his time trying to explain to people that he was trying to get a football scholarship in convoluted Shakespearian phrases. Really, it was hilarious, especially considering that it was coming out of the mouth of a six foot three-ish guy with biceps roughly the size of Connecticut and blonde hair easily past his shoulder, and also that his brother didn't seem to have any problems with mastering modern English. The brother's name was Loki, and mostly he kept quiet, his shoulders hunched under the black jacket he tended to wear, along with a green and gold beanie and scarf. Slytherin colours, Darcy couldn't help but think (and say, loudly), which suited his personality all too well. Loki might only be twelve - in the same grade as Clint - but he was a sly, devious little trickster.  
At best, he was subtly witty and kind of alright. At worse, he was _disturbingly_ insane.  
Thor claimed it was all the fault of his father, for not telling Loki earlier that he was adopted. Personally, Darcy just thought he was a little shit.  
Jane, Thor's girlfriend, said it was best to ignore him. She was more into either books, grounded and earthly, or stars, distant and wonderful. Or Thor: beefy and cute as hell.  
"Ok, ok," she was saying, gesturing around wildly. "So, your crap-ass dad was talking shit about-"  
"I would thank you to refrain from cursing so much." sighed Thor, shaking his head, and she waved it off.  
"He was- holy crap, hottie at, like, three o'clock."  
She pointed, very obviously, at the kid being shown past them by a teacher, who glanced at her and visibly repressed a laugh.  
"So subtle, Darcy." sighed Jane. "He's probably going to be traumatised forever."  
She smirked, winding a piece of hair around her finger. "Nah, he seemed pretty cool with it. Anyway, boys in makeup like attention, right?"

Steve was waiting, somewhat unsurprisingly, outside Principal Fury's office, along with Peggy Carter. She was determined to go into the military once she was old enough, and basically had organised her entire life since she made that decision, at age eight, in a rigid and disciplined manner through sheer force of bloodymindedness, meticulous planning and the demeanour of someone very able to kick butt if necessary. She was born in England, and had never lost the accent, although anyone teasing her about it would promptly get a killer heel thrown at their nose.  
For once, it was neither her nor him that was in trouble.  
Sam Wilson (who Steve would probably call his best friend apart from Natasha and Darcy, and they were kind of private) had somehow managed to convince Peggy's little cousin, Sharon, to help him hack the school computers and change every picture file to a photo of Fury, who wore an eyepatch, photoshopped into a pirate costume.  
They'd gotten away with it for almost exactly twenty four hours, most of which was spent in hysterically nervous giggling, and been caught pretty late last night, which was why they were only being chewed out right now.  
He knew Sam vaguely from elementary school, but they'd never talked.  
They only really met at the support group both of their mothers had forced them to go to, for kids with military parents who had died overseas. (Steve was ten, Sam was thirteen. The closer it was, the more it stung, but at least Sam had a few more memories of his dad, right? Steve never really knew the guy, which hurt, sometimes. So much.) Fifteen and in a support group was embarrassing enough, and they knew that they were in the same school, same year and, hey, even half of the same classes, so they'd naturally gravitated together. (Sam himself made no pretence about being a troublemaker. Peggy had too much of a good girl image to get caught, most of the time, and everybody just assumed Steve was the weedy little geek he looked like. Sharon liked computers and guns, in complete juxtaposition to her neat little skirts, pretty blouses, neat blonde hair and quiet aura. It kind of scared Steve, her and Peggy's power. If Natasha and her informants were willing to work with them, which, luckily, they were not, they'd be ruling the entire Northern Hemisphere within a week.)  
"It's completely absurd." Peggy was sighing, applying bright red lipstick in precise defiance to the school's uniform policy. "If the security is lax enough for Sharon to get past it on her Blackberry, then they're the ones with the problem, not us."  
"Still against the rules." he pointed out, and got a dry glare sent at him from the corner of her eye.  
"Nowhere in the rules does it specifically state _not_ to breach the firewalls and upload a joke picture of the headmaster. You can look it up, if you want."  
He smiled at her and resumed scuffing his feet against the floor, looking down. He was sitting right on the edge, but at least his feet were touching the ground this time.  
A teacher's heels clicked past them, and then came to a stop, telling someone shortly to _take a seat, Principal Fury will be with you in a moment_. Steve and Peggy flicked eyes at each other for a moment, and then at the teen who had folded himself silently and half-awkwardly into the chair to the left of Steve. He had tied-up dark hair and shadowed, blank, blue eyes, and was apparently trying to become one with the loose black hoodie he was wearing over skinny jeans, slumping in his seat.  
"Are you new?" asked Peggy politely, leaning forwards (She had made a motion for Steve to do it, at first, and then changed her mind and done it herself. This happened with alarming frequency.).  
He raised an eyebrow and shifted uncomfortably in his seat a little. "Uh, yes." There was the slightest accent in his voice.  
After that, he went silent, and Steve asked what his name was.  
It seemed necessary, really.  
The kid just scowled, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck. "Ya- James. Bucky Barnes."  
"Just 'Bucky'?" he frowned, curious, and received a petulant shrug by way of an answer.  
"Why not?" grunted the kid.  
His expression turned steely, and Peggy grabbed his arm instinctively. 'Steven Grant Rogers' was a very different person to 'Stevie Say-That-To-My-Face-I'll-Fight-You-I'm-Not-Even-Kidding Rogers', and he was on the edge of becoming the second of the two.  
"Steve." she hissed. "It's not worth it. Let it go."  
He looked like he was about to snap something back, but before he did the door opened and Sam and Sharon stumbled out, still trying to not laugh (which, after a few rounds with Fury, was an impressive feat).  
"And _next time_ you two little fuc-" yelled the loud, perpetually vexed voice of the principal after them. He was cut off by the voice of the deputy principal, Coulson. (Steve would never cease to be amazed that they were both on Natasha's metaphorical payroll.)  
"Nick!"  
"They're seventeen, Phil, they know what cursing is- listen, next time you two... _students_... decide to play a little joke, think about how maybe it might land you in detention for the next three months!"  
The door slammed, hard, and all of them jumped, leaving approximately two seconds for Sharon, Sam, Steve and Peggy to glance at each other and for the two formers to break into full-blown sniggers again. There was an audible sigh, which the usual precursor to the appearance of the deputy principal, and then he stuck his head around the door.  
"Whoever else is waiting, could you-" he said exhaustedly. "Oh, there you are, James. We'll need to talk about your timetable."  
As though it was somehow an enormous effort to him, the kid forced himself upright and wandered into the office, eyes still blank.  
"Well." said Peggy sharply, into the silence that his exit had left behind. "He was a weirdo."  
Steve shrugged, standing up. "Doesn't matter." _I'll get the info from Nat later_. "Come on, let's go to class."

*

It had been a long day. He had had gym today, which he always dreaded (partially because it was embarrassing to actually attempt the sports, partially because it was embarrassing for teachers to tell him that he was essentially just to weedy to bother trying), and now he was tired and sad about human nature (PE did that to him) and wanted to lie down and sleep FOREVER. His friends, however, had also had long days, and neither was prepared to go home (Natasha to her chronically absent foster parents, Clint on an inevitable sugar rush, working out in front of her laptop and a microwave dinner; Darcy to the internet and boredom and trying to ignore as her family questioned her lifestyle choices.), and so, when he arrived back, Darcy was already propped up on the floor against the end of his bed, playing Crossy Road on her phone.  
He nearly jumped out of his skin, glancing around. His mom, bumbling around the kitchen, still in her nurses's uniform, with curly blonde hair and a face straight out of a World War Two propaganda poster, had just kind of hummed a hello.  
"Jee-zus, Darce! How'd you even get in here?"  
She glanced up and laughed casually at his shocked face. "Your mom let me in, Steve, calm down."  
He relaxed a tiny bit, and was only a little surprised when Natasha came out of his bathroom, rubbing her hair with a towel. She was wearing just her swimming costume and high-waisted jean shorts, and Steve felt that maybe now would be a good time to point out that he was bisexual, not gay, and then realised that Natasha was a) his friend, and b) so far out of his league that he might as well go find Beyoncé and tell her that he was bisexual.  
"How did _you_ get in?" he asked, more tiredly, and she shot him an amused glance, light dancing in her eyes.  
"Me? Oh, I broke the lock on your window."  
He spun around to confirm that, yeah, that was exactly what she'd done, and any protests he had died in his throat when she hugged him around the shoulders and pulled him to sit next to Darcy with her on the other side.  
Once they were leaning on each other, all comfort and warmth and communal knee-hugging, and they had all relaxed, the two girls exchanged a slightly predatory grin.  
"Ok, I'm just gonna say it first," laughed Darcy, hands out in a mock-placating gesture. "New kid. Long hair, guyliner, total teen vampire trope, walks kinda stiffly, wearing a hoodie. Don't know if you saw him, Stevie, but there is no chance that Nat doesn't know his entire life story by now. I mean, you've probably hunted down his entire bloodline or something-"  
Natasha had already gotten her phone out and was flicking through her texts. "Hold on. Maria got to him already, with a little help from Fury's secure files. Apparently someone got past his firewall already."  
Steve suppressed a smile, and a few seconds later Natasha made an interested little noise. "His name is James 'Yasha' Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes."  
"Long name." commented Steve, and was mainly ignored, apart from Darcy's quick and dismissive explanation. "Yasha's Russian for James, Bucky's short for Buchanan."  
"His parents were Romanian, he lived in America until he was three, and then the entire family upped and moved to Russia for no apparent reason. They died in a car crash last year, and since he's technically an American citizen, he's back here until he's at least out of high school. There's also a police file about the apparently suspicious nature of the crash, which Maria couldn't really access, and a medical record that's not nearly as extensive as yours, Rogers, but..." She cut off, eyes wide. "Holy fucking Mozart on a bicycle."  
"Mozart?"  
"Sh, Darcy, I'm a ballerina. Look at this, though."  
They leant even closer together to stare at her phone, and then Darcy rolled her eyes.  
"Natasha, babe. Not everyone reads Russian."  
"Oh, sorry. He's an amputee: lost his left arm in the accident."  
Steve frowned. "Didn't look like it. I was sat next to him for about five minutes, and I didn't see anything."  
She shrugged. "He had his hands in his pockets, right? Must be a prosthetic."  
She inclined her head curiously to the right, like a bird.  
"I haven't met any Russians for a long time."  
Darcy rubbed a gentle hand over her shoulder blades, and they were silent for a moment.  
(The circumstances in which Natasha had left the country of her birth were vague and shrouded in governmental cover-ups. She refused to say anything about her childhood before age nine, apart from that she had been a ballerina, but she had supplied them all with incredibly illegal vodka one night and through the underage-drinking filled haze, both remembered in vivid detail the way she had described being plucked from an orphanage in the middle of the night by armed men, hustled onto an aeroplane with none of her possessions and left alone, confused and frightened. At first security control on the other side had no idea what was going on either, and then something had come through and she'd been ushered to one side and there was an asylum claim made - she didn't say why - and then she was just passed around foster families for years and years in a country whose language she barely knew, learning and getting older and more jaded, until she arrived in the same one as Clint, and decided that maybe having a little brother who adored her and needed a bit more looking after than his 'parents' were providing, a school at the mercy of her knowledge, and two secret best friends who she could actually, finally trust, was maybe worth holding on to.  
That was nearly four years ago.  
That was Natasha.)  
"I'm confused." interjected Steve. "Are all Russian kids scary, or is it just you two?"  
"I'll ask him." she replied, flashing a quick smile at the smaller boy. "Tomorrow. Spread it around people who... you know, _know_ , that I'm on surveillance."  
"Trying to recruit a new underling for your army of darkness." suggested Darcy.  
"Drafting a new private into the noble war." laughed Steve.  
"Auditioning bodyguards for the duty of protecting their queen."  
"Interrogating a suspect mass murderer. I mean, he looks like it."  
The conversation devolved into laughter and nonsense, and eventually she slipped out from between the pair and gathered her stuff together, shrugging on a leather jacket and striding downstairs.  
"And, Steve," she called, spinning around on her heel at the top of the stairs. "If you manage not to fight him before the weekend, I get a new pair of shoes."  
He frowned, offended, and closed the door to his room to the sound of his mom's confused, "Natasha! I didn't realise you were-"  
Darcy was sitting on his desk when he got back in, swinging her legs. "Wanna revise for the chem test? I'm thinking of getting a B; it's non-vital."  
Steve shrugged. "If you want. What are the chances I could skip class that day?"  
She raised an eyebrow meaningfully at his bag. "It's your choice. You managed to get the janitor to give you a skeleton key, remember?"  
He smiled reluctantly, that little bit of mischief behind it. "I know."


	2. Bucky

Chapter Two: Bucky

He woke up with a start, skittering to the side and almost falling out of whatever bed he was currently lying in. Bucky scrambled to his feet, wide eyed, and his fists tightened into balls-  
Except, they didn't. Only one of them did, and he was left with the sensation of a phantom limb as he glanced down at the empty space where his left arm used to be.  
 _Oh_. he thought, his stomach sinking sickeningly. _Yeah_.  
He was seventeen, he was an amputee, and he was back in America. It was a strange sensation.  
Bucky buried his face in his right hand for a moment, and then sorted out the covers that he had messed up in his desperate attempt to roll out of the foreign space, and went looking for his suitcase. Long, loose hoodies: that was the solution.

 _I won't wear the prosthetic today_ , he decided, tying off the left arm of his jacket. He didn't know why- maybe sometimes he just needed something to fight somebody about. He was angry like that.  
He was staying with some guy who was apparently his long-lost uncle or many-times-removed older cousin, who had been introduced as 'Alexander' and had barked at Bucky to call him 'Pierce'. To be honest, Pierce hadn't seemed too concerned for his welfare, and - apart from stocking his house with cereal and take-out menus, and occasionally offering a condescending glass of milk - mainly let him do his own thing. He'd been screamed at by the guy on Monday, for not going to school (apparently the headteacher was ex-military, like Pierce, and they went way back), and then forcibly dropped off on Tuesday and told to behave, _or else_ , but he knew for a fact that Pierce didn't give a damn about his education. And it wasn't like his uncle/cousin/whatever even remotely scared him. Bucky's coping mechanisms (blank, cold, staring eyes, tense muscles, his conscious mind not in the driving seat) were stronger than that.

When he finally managed to force himself to plod downstairs, his hair a mess around his shoulders, Pierce was long gone. He worked in an office; a bank or the government or something, Bucky hadn't been paying attention, or maybe no one had ever told him.  
There was a note next to the cereal, simply telling him to get the bus, number 182, and he took a long breath. People had mainly avoided him at school, which was fine and actually what he was aiming for, but it was still exhausting to try and be... normal, human.

By the time he had numbly forced himself to eat breakfast and shrugged on his jacket, shouldering his way out of the door and very deliberately not locking it - fucking Pierce deserved to be robbed anyway - he only had about twenty minutes to get to school, and started hurrying down the street towards the bus stop, praying inwardly that no one bothered him.  
But fate was, of course, not that kind.  
There was a girl perched on the wall next to his bus stop, all vivid red curls and pale skin and perfect winged eyeliner. (Bucky didn't make a habit of wearing makeup _too_ often, and when he did, not complex stuff, but even he appreciated that winged eyeliner was difficult.) She was watching him with dangerously green eyes, and her whole posture became a little different when she saw him- she was a manipulator. It's easy to tell them, if you know how, because they're quiet until they work you out and then, once they know how to push your buttons, they're either your best friend or your worst enemy. Apparently she has already worked him out (or, she thought she had), and immediately hopped down from the wall, smiling ingratiatingly and a little shyly.  
No way in fuck was that her real personality.  
"Hi!" she called, waving at him. He let his eyes slide past her, a slight furrow between his brows, but even that didn't put her off.  
"I'm Nat. Heard you were new?"  
"M'fine." he grunted at her. "Thanks, but I don't need any help."  
 _I haven't brushed my hair,_ he realised, feeling kind of inadequate next to her outright cuteness  
"That's not what interested me." she added, still half-smiling. "It's not what they've put on the files, but my name is Natalia Alianovna Romanova, by the way."  
He looked sharply at her, suddenly noticing that she was about three quarters of his height. Her personality, even a fake one, took up a lot more room than she actually did.  
"Vy Russkom?"  
"Da. You won't mind if I keep speaking English, though? I've lived here for eight years."  
He shook his head, surprised, and then offered her a (very) hesitant smile, little more than an upward twitch of his lips. "I didn't think I'd meet anyone..."  
"Me neither."  
"I'm Ya- James."  
She laughed, the sound soft, like bells. "Going to say Yasha, right? I was nine when I came here- I was so confused when no one ever called me Nashenka. Do you prefer James now, then?"  
He had always been called Yasha, as long as he could remember. But... he had told those kids it was Bucky, and this was a new start whether he wanted it or not...  
"Bucky." he said, voice distant, and then explained quickly at her curiously arched eyebrow. "It's my middle name."  
"Ok. Just Natasha, I guess. Or whatever diminutive you prefer."  
Definitely manipulative.  
He just sat down next to where she had been a moment before, and she jumped up onto the wall to sit next to him, shuffling up a little so that their shoulders where just about touching.  
"Nice to meet you, then, Nashenka."  
And this time, her smile was a little wistful.

*

Thor and Loki were in the middle of yet another 'fight', which mainly involved Thor either looking offended at his brother's feeble blows or holding Loki's arms behind his back and getting screamed at, usually while a gang of bored middle-schoolers and Jane watched and Darcy filmed it on her iPod. Not to buck the trend, she had the camera up and pointed at them, tuning out Jane's usual exasperated sighs and Loki's ranting in Norwegian, and then her phone buzzed in her pocket and she put the iPod away to answer it.  
It wasn't like Thor and Loki were going to stop fighting any time soon.  
"Hola, Lewis here?"  
Someone went crashing into the lockers next to her (it had apparently deteriorated into a full on brawl with most of the seventh graders backing Loki, and she wasn't absolutely certain but she was pretty sure that crashing had been done by Clint) and she waved at them to be quiet, listening to the answer on the other end.  
"Hey, Lewis! It's Skye."  
She bit back a smile. Skye was her favourite of Natasha's minions: mouthy and obnoxious and twice as smart as the other two.  
"What's up? Did Barnes kill Nat or something? Did she kill Barnes? Did Stevie kill Barnes, and then she killed Stevie? Who's dead?"  
"Huh? No one! She just texted me to tell you that she's successfully gotten herself into Bucky's good books, and do you want her to put in a few words on your behalf for hook-up value?"  
Darcy scoffed, side-stepping out of the way of what was _definitely_ Clint hurling himself at Loki, and cupping her hands over her phone and her ears as Thor bellowed.  
"I can barely hear you, the Odinsons have gone all berserker again and the teachers are avoiding this hall like the freakin' plague- but, anyway, he is definitely the kind of guy who would pick Romanov over me."  
She could sense Skye's shrug. It was partially metaphysical, in the knowledge of Skye's habits, partially the sound of movement into the receiver.  
"Whatever. Don't unload your insecurities on the messenger. Have fun with the Odinsons! I think I heard Coulson coming your way anyway."  
Skye clicked off, and Darcy slid the phone back into her pocket just in time to walk away from the fight without being caught there.  
Mr. Coulson might _look_ like a librarian, but even Loki knew better than to try something on with him.

Bucky himself was getting used to Natasha pretty easily. Maybe the cheerful popular girl was her default, or maybe everyone else just accustomed to her changing around, but no one seemed particularly surprised about the way she was acting.  
Just the fact that she was with him.  
They had only just passed through the school door (him with his eyes carving twin paths down the hallway floor, her half-skipping to keep up with his long strides, greeting a few choice students with half-smiles around the bubblegum she was chewing) the first time he heard someone mention his rather conspicuous _total lack of a limb_ , and he almost snarled at them.  
Natasha recognised the expression on his face (from years of hanging out with Steve and his outsized inflammatory temper) and seamlessly walked over to his left to cover the gap where his arm used to be, memorising the face and name of the girl who had pointed it out to have her murdered later. Well, not murdered. Egged.  
"I saw you yesterday," she mentioned, faux excitement shining through the 'realisation'. "God, I almost forgot. You had your hair up, and you were wearing a fake arm, right?"  
He glanced at her reluctantly. "...yeah. My uncle thought it was a good idea. To avoid trouble."  
"Your uncle can suck a dick." she replied, prim and unruffled, and Bucky grinned with just a few too many teeth. Whatever he had been expecting from this version of her, it wasn't that.  
It was pretty wonderful, though.

According to Peggy, none of them had anything better to do, as per usual, and so Steve and Sam were waiting outside their English class, Sam trying dutifully to explain the plot of Die Hard to Steve.  
"No, no, Bruce Willis is- shit, man, is that the guy you told me about yesterday?"  
Steve looked quickly up at him, and then down the corridor, his eyes widening.  
"Hey, yeah-"  
"With _Natasha_ fucking _Romanov_?!"  
"She's trying to recruit him to her army of darkness." suggested Steve, hiding a smirk. Sam laughed at him, astonished.  
"Probably. Man, she is scary sometimes. Don't you and her-"  
"No." countered Steve quickly, adjusting the thick rims of his glasses on the bridge of his nose. "I don't really know her that well."  
Sam frowned at them. "Hey, is it just me, or does he not have..."  
He tailed off when Steve raised an eyebrow warningly and coughed awkwardly, going back to explaining the plot of Die Hard.  
(Steve's multiple disabilities made him pretty prepared to attack people who acted like they even might say something ablest. Not that Sam was ablest; just that Steve was violent.)  
"...and then Alan Rickman-"  
"Sam." interrupted Steve, frowning. "Will you or won't you be prepared to skip class next period?"  
The taller boy hesitated, remembered the test, and nodded gratefully.  
"Hell yeah."

*

 

The teacher didn't seem to understand that Bucky didn't want to speak, and he was dense enough that Natasha's death glare and Steve's muted protests didn't get through to him.  
"Excuse me," he barked again, knocking on the desk that Bucky was sitting at. "Mr. Barnes? Anybody home?"  
Any quiet giggles were silenced immediately by Natasha, who made a sharp cutting gesture. And the teacher _still_ didn't notice.  
"If you're in there," continued the teacher, obnoxious and cruel. "I just asked you to read the next paragraph of Act Five, Scene Three."  
Bucky didn't respond, other than for his eyes (not focused anywhere near he teacher) to harden a little and his fist to ball on the desk.  
"Mr. Barnes-" started the teacher again, and it was like a switch had been flipped. All of a sudden, the table was flying across the room, sending the asshole teacher onto his back a few feet away, and Bucky was standing up, braced like he was going to fight someone, chest heaving and body tense.  
He glanced around the shocked faces of his frozen classmates, and was slamming roughly out of the door before the teacher could even stumble back up to his feet.  
Unfortunately, by the time Steve and Natasha (and, hell, half the rest of the class) had surged to their feet and after him, the teacher was standing unsteadily in front of the door to block them in.

He tore down the hall, heart pounding desperately. _I fucked up, I fucked up, I-_  
Pierce was going to so mad at him, and the school was going to be so mad at him, and he was not only going to be 'That amputee kid', he was going to be 'That fucking crazy amputee kid who flipped a table on his fucking second day'.  
Bucky slowed down and growled in frustration, raking his hands angrily through his hair. _I fucked up._  
Darcy strolled out of her classroom just in time to see him kick a trash can, hard, and send it skidding down the corridor on its side.  
"Wow," she called, her voice echoing off the lockers and colliding with his short intake of breath. "That's some real... leg strength ...you got there." She shrugged, hands in the pockets of her jacket. (It was black leather, with a red lining, which was why she was wearing it over a wine-coloured t-shirt. It also belonged to Natasha, not that anyone noticed when Darcy was the one wearing it. Steve agreed with the girls that it made her look pretty goddamn cute, especially when she wore a beanie with it like she was now, and dark blue jean shorts over wooly black tights.)  
"I don't really know anything about," She gestured vaguely in the direction of his lower body. "Y'know, legs. Leg exercises. That kinda thing."  
He stared at her incredulously, but she was used enough to that and kept talking.  
"What did they get you for? I've been uniform policy-ed for the..." She gestured to way that the neck of her t-shirt dipped low, and smiled lopsidedly. "It's dumb, really. I pointed out to him that if he wasn't looking, he wouldn't have seen them, and he threatened me with detention. So, what'd you do?"  
Bucky hesitated, rolling his jaw, and then grated out the words. "I threw a table at Mr. Lehnsherr."  
"Whoa," she laughed, completely unruffled. "Sweet. You want to cool down outside or something? That guy's a real asshole. I totally would have table-faced him myself if I was strong enough."  
He didn't reply and just watched her sidle past him and flick a window open, glancing at him once more in a silent offer before she ducked out herself.  
"You know Natasha Romanoff?" he called, confused and desperate for an explanation.  
Darcy laughed again. "Yeah, why? Queen Bitch around here, that's her. Do I look like the kind of girl who gets a free pass to hang around with Romanoff?"  
 _Fuck it._  
"Never mind." he muttered, and followed her.


End file.
